Effective leadership is crucial for advancing public health and facilitating coordination, initiatives, and responsiveness to community needs. Enhancing leadership competencies in the public health workforce has an important role in responding to acute emergencies such as pandemics, conflict and war, as well as long-term challenges such as climate change and migration.

Attention to public health leadership, encompassing communication, science, practice, and training, is gaining traction globally. Governments, public health organizations, and educational institutions must now come to a shared definition and explore innovative approaches to developing leaders. Training and capacity building in public health leadership remains poorly integrated into graduate or post-graduate programs, with only limited access to courses such as the annual WHO European Public Health Leadership Course.

This is a joint special issue of PHR and IJPH. For PHR, we invite high-quality Reviews (all types) and Policy Briefs. For IJPH, we invite Original Articles. Manuscripts that address Leadership in Public Health will be considered, especially those related to the following aspects:

- Shared definitions, concepts, or theoretical foundations in public health leadership
- Public health leadership across scientific, educational and administrative structures and levels.
- Ethical practice of public health leadership and leadership for health and wellbeing
- Leadership in the context of health emergencies or contemporary issues e.g. healthy ageing, climate change, conflicts, health equity, and digital health
- Communicating as a public health leader and dealing with misinformation
- Developing leadership skills and competency-based education in public health
- Environments that promote or hinder public health leadership e.g. diversity and inclusion policies; well-being at work

Further information

IJPH and PHR double-blind peer-review and author guidelines apply. Submitted manuscripts and abstracts must fully comply with the IJPH/PHR rules for article type, length and format (please consult the information for authors on the IJPH or PHR website).

Authors must submit their abstract (manuscript summary) by August 31, 2025. Only if the abstract is accepted will they be invited to submit the full manuscript, which will be due by November 30, 2025. In case of acceptance after peer review, articles will be published in the online special issue approximately 3 weeks after acceptance.

Contact:
PHR Editorial Office: phr@swisstph.ch
IJPH Editorial Office: ijph@swisstph.ch

Authors

Public Health Reviews

Participating Journals

International Journal of Public Health